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EDITORIAL

No ‘back door’ Star Wars

The same public pressure that forced the Mul-
roney government to decline Reagan’s invitation
to join his Star Wars program is being felt today,
days before Shamrock Summit Two in Washing-
ton, March 18. —

What the Tories heard then, and are hearing
now, are the voices of millions of Canadians who
oppose participation in SDI either through the
front door or back door. And, even though this
government may wish to oblige Reagan by deliv-
ering a signed-and-sealed NORAD pact when
Mulroney meets the U.S. president, the demand
to at least re-insert the protective ABM clause
(taken out quietly in 1981) represents that of the
overwhelmingly majority of Canadians.

In past months, the .all-party parliamentary
committee on NORAD heard irrefutable evi-
dence that NORAD and Star Wars are linked;
that the 1981 agreement, if renewed as is, will take
us into SDI with all its dangers. It heard the voice

of Canadians urging a new course — one of a
different role for Canada — of an international
force for peace and disarmament.

And in this time-frame, the USSR’s exciting
and realistic plan to rid the world of nuclear
weapons over the next 15 years was placed before
humanity, making Star Wars even uglier and
anti-human.

The NORAD pact expires in May and, even
though Mulroney may be unable to take it with
him to Washington next week, indications are it
will be signed weeks later. While there is a grow-
ing opinion that the pact itself should be scrapped
anda new, positive direction sought, the battle to
reinsert the ABM clause, if successful, would be a
short-term victory.

Pressure and yet more pressure must be
brought to bear on this issue of Star Wars/
NORAD and Canada’s drift into the U.S. mil-
itary orbit. Our very lives depend on it.

A land of opportunity?

While on the 1984 election trail, Brian Mulro-
ney never tired of telling about this his life as the
poor boy from Baie Comeau who rose “‘in this
land of opportunity” to make it big.

On his latest tour across Canada, Mulroney’s
speeches are again filled with “the land of oppor-
tunity” theme and, for his children and those like
them, odds are they'll do just fine.

For millions of others, however, destined to
miss out on the opportunities (and connections)
of the Upper Canada Colleges, the future is grim.
A full 50 per cent of the 1.5 million jobless are
youth between 19 and 24 years, although they

only make up 18 per cent of Unemployment |

Insurance recipients. Countless others (because
they’re uncounted non-persons to this govern-
ment) exist on welfare or make it through some-
how in a physically and psychologically
damaging environment.

Because they are deprived of that precious
ingredient of youth — the future — young peo-
ple increasingly are expressing alienation and
despair. Crime and drug abuse figures for this age
category are rising.

The Tory answer was to set up a Special Senate
Committee on Youth in late 1984 which labored
15 months before bringing in its report — a
mixed bag of confusion, pseudo-cures and rhe-
toric.

Similarly, the Tory Youth Ministry (and Min-
ister, Andree Champagne)’ only succeeded in

providing the minister herself with a free world
travel pass and little else. Today the ministry
exists without a single cent for a working budget
and is saddled with Champagne who was caught

last week urging the government to use federal -
_ funds to recruit young Tories to fight the next

election.

It’s difficult to imagine more cynicism from a
government charged with dealing with the crisis
young péople face, the “lost generation,” as the
Senate report calls them.

The plain fact is that the Tory government has
no program for Canadian youth and plans none.
Even its band-aid summer youth jobs program
for 1985 was a bust, and the highly-touted Kati-
mavik project is now being axed.

What we have across Canada is an emergency
situation needing emergency action. We’ve had
our fill of smug prime ministers, senate reports
and apologetic youth ministers.

Elsewhere in this issue, the Young Communist
League replies to the Senate with alternatives
which include job training, greater educational
opportunity, full UIC benefits for jobless youth
and a job creation program to put young Canada
to work.

We don’t need more of Mulroney’s “land of
opportunity” which means a licence to steal for
the rich and powerful; we do need a genuine land
of opportunity for all Canadians, especially for
our young.

sees SOMETHING |
EoR PUBLIC WoRKEN
; oaeRe THEIR HEADS

ON.

Profiteer of the week

The Toronto Stock Exchange, a “non-profit” organization, man-
aged to report a “surplus” of $6.7-million for 1985. It must have
been some loose change laying about... és na

—_IRIBUNE |

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onsidering the steps that we have
made over the last couple of decades
towards Canadian sovereignty, most
Canadians find it pretty difficult to accept
the cozy relationship that the Mulroney
government has with the Reagan adminis-

People and Issues

Hotel and the Post Office to demonstrate
their plight. The action culminated on
June 19 in the events of Bloody Sunday. —
During the war years, Harris shipped
out as a member of the Canadian Sea-
men’s Union, later following many of

traiton in the U.S. But it adds insult to
injury to see that Tory cabinet ministers
are being more candid in outlining their
government’s policies to American aud-
iences than they are with Canadian.

As readers will know well from our
front page photos over the last month,
shipyard worekrs in this province have
been trying desperately — and we mean
desperately — to get some answers from
various cabinet ministers, including Prime
Minister Brian Mulroney and Industry
Minister Sinclair Stevens. They want to
know specifically what has happened to
the Tory promises, made before the Sep-

tember, 1984 election, to develop a Cana--

dian shipping policy that would ensure a

_ future for the shipbuilding industry.

But they haven’t been given those
—_— In fact, the ministers haven’t even
talked to them. Three yards in this pro-
vince have gone under and others across
the country are looking at the last of their

orders, but the Tory cabinet is still silent.
That’s unless you go to Washington, of
course. Down there, it seems is where you
get a briefing on the Tories’ real agenda.
Barbara McDougall,-the Minister of
State for Finance was there last week, talk-
ing to the Tax Executives Institute Inc.
What she was announcing there with great
fanfare was the same news that no cabinet
minister had the nerve, apparently, to

_ deliver to shipyard workers here — that

the promise: of federal assistance to the

shipbuilding industry simply will not be

fulfilled. “To restore-fiscal integrity, we
have undertaken the most far-reaching
program of expenditures control ever
undertaken by any Canadian govern-
ment...”” McDougall declared proudly.
“For instance, we are continuing to reduce
the number of government employees. We
have eliminated many wasteful and ineffi-

cient programs and are continuing to

phase out others. . including energy con-

servation subsidies, heavy water plants
(and) subsidies to the shipbuilding indus-
try.” ‘
That tells you how much credence the
Tories put on their pre-election pledge of a

shipbuilding policy — because a ship-

building policy, at least for the immediate
future, means. subsidies, as’ both the
Thatcher government in Britain and the
Reagan administration have recognized.

* * *

bit of this province’s militant labor
history was lost earlier this month
with the death of Norman Harris who
passed away quietly in his room in Van-
couver’s Downtown Eastside March 3.
A division leader of the unemployed in
the 1930s, he took part in the 1935 On-to-
Ottawa Trek and, three years later, in
May, 1938, led Division 3 into the Van-
couver Art Gallery when the unemployed
took over the Art Gallery, the Georgia

shipmates back to this province where he
continued as an active unionist in the Uni-
ted Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union —

and the Ironworkers. A memorial service |

was held March 11.

Bie 6K ea
¢ have a note from the Committee
for Medical and Refugee Aid to

Palestinians asking for assistance in th

ME. ea

. campaign to collect children’s toys for the |

Children’s Unit at the Palestine Hospital

in Cairo, Egypt. Sturdy plastic, wooden
and soft toys are preferred over battery-
operated ones. :

Two collection events, featuring Pales- |
tinian films, are scheduled for March 23
and May 4, 2-5 p.m., at the Britannia

Community Centre Music Room but if |

you. can’t make them, you can call
876-1530 or 254-4312 for pickup.

- 4e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 19, 1986

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